Thinking Activity

            Worksheet: Screening Movie Waiting for Godot

Q.     Who according to you is Godot? God? An object of desire? Death? Goal? Success? Or  . . .

Ans-> According to me Godot is an object of desire, it is so because as the play is based on waiting and we can see the two tramps- Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for a person named Mr. Godot whom they haven’t seen ever in their lifetime. They still keep on waiting because the wait itself gets generated to desire with the passing time. It’s for their desire only that their wait becomes so enthusiastic. It’s natural when we desire something we want to achieve in one way or the other.

Q.   The director feels the setting with some debris. Can you read any meaning in the contours of debris in the setting of the play?

Ans-> Here, director uses the settings of debris and wastage and collapsed buildings which shows failure of materialistic world. That’s why he shows that debris in the background that gives reminder to both of them that nothing is permanent in the end. But what gives them pessimistic way to live is the hope and meaning that they find out of that debris. And that’s why they go on waiting for Godot.

Q.  The play begins with the dialogue “Nothing to be done”. How does the theme of ‘nothingness’ recurs in the play?

Ans-> The play begins with the dialogue, “nothing to be done” is appropriate here because in every aspect of the play- in structure, setting, characters, dialogues and many as such we can find that the play has no meaning at all, though it suggests the nothingness of life. We can also find this in one of the dialogue which has got some connection with it, “nobody comes…. nobody goes…. It’s awful…” in the play we can see that both are waiting for Godot but they are not sure whether he would come or not but they still go on waiting. We know that our life is unpredictable and full of uncertainties are in it but then also we go on living our life with the hope that one day or the other we would achieve salvation but that day never comes. And at last we feel like worthless, though we had achieved so many things in our life and we all have one restless question which is what else can be done by us to achieve salvation.

Q.  Do you agree: “The play (Waiting for Godot), we agreed, was a positive play, not negative, not pessimistic. As I saw it, with my blood and skin and eyes, the philosophy is: 'No matter what— atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, anything—life goes on. You can kill yourself, but you can't kill life." (E.G. Marshal who played Vladimir in original Broadway production 1950s)?

Ans-> We can say waiting for Godot as a puzzling play. Because it is not quite clear that the play is positive or negative or pessimistic play we can interpretate it in various ways. That’s why Beckett himself did not throw much light on the meaning of the play. It depends on individual because there is something in the play for almost everybody. According to E.G.Marshal’s philosophy that we can end our physical suffering by killing ourselves but the question is that can we kill the life or its cycle? No, we can’t because it is not static that’s why life goes on and it doesn’t make any difference whether we are living or dead.

Q. How are the props like hat and boots used in the play? What is the symbolical significance of these props?

Ans-> Significance of props like ‘Hat’ and ‘Boot’ are described in this play. Throughout the play Vladimir looks into hat so many times instead of looking into boot and through Vladimir hat is symbolised as a rational thought process. Estragon who focuses on boots more than hats is more earthly and grounded than Vladimir and through Estragon boot is symbolised as the struggle of life which all faces, and taking off boots shows the try to come out from that struggles. So it’s all about the struggle between mind and body for which we at times are unable to make out what is right or wrong because unlike Vladimir and Estragon our hats and boots also symbolises the same in one way or the other that is- hat thinks for the meaning of life and boots struggles for the meaning of life. 

Q. Do you think that the obedience of Lucky is extremely irritating and nauseatic? Even when the master Pozzo is blind, he obediently hands the whip in his hand. Do you think that such a capacity of slavishness is unbelievable?

Ans-> Yes, I think obedience of Lucky is extremely irritating and nauseatic. When Lucky knows that his master has gone blind than also he gives the whip in his hand. When someone knows the reality and follows it blindly it’s called as addiction and he can’t come out from that easily. But it happens in the world that the disciples of the saints follow them blindly even when the reality gets revealed but instead of that they go on proving that there is no truth behind it. And we can’t make them realize until and unless they themselves not feel that what they are going into the wrong path and it becomes meaningless to show them the right path. We can find this type of slavishness around us too. So, one shall accept it as a part of life.

Q. “The subject of the play is not Godot but ‘Waiting’” (Esslin, A Search for the Self). Do you agree? How can you justify your answer?

Ans-> In Martin Esslin’s essay ‘A Search for the self’ he said that the subject of the play is not Godot but waiting. I do agree with his statement because throughout our life we are waiting for something. We know that future is unpredictable. So what? Can we give living life? Can we stop desiring something? Can we leave hope? No, we can’t. Our life itself is unpredictable but we go on living to meet with its end, i.e. death. So we can say that internally we are waiting for liberation of our soul. And externally we are waiting for the death. But the common thing in the both is “waiting” and we can’t free ourselves from it.

Q. Do you think that plays like this can better be ‘read’ than ‘viewed’ as it requires a lot of thinking on the part of readers, while viewing, the torrent of dialogues does not give ample time and space to ‘think’? Or is it that the audio-visuals help in better understanding of the play?

Ans-> Yes, I think that audio-visual gives us better understanding of the play. It is also true that it doesn’t give us ample time to think. We have to move fast with changing scene on the screen. But if we try to look at the reading of the text it too has got some limitations for which in some parts we can’t imagine the actual scene or action or pause which is written in the text. But in screening of this play we came across few things as such that why they take pause or what does the meaning of silence in both the acts signify.